City attorney directed to set titles, salaries

Wednesday

Feb 26, 2014 at 9:30 PMFeb 26, 2014 at 10:22 PM

By Dan PetrellaStaff Writer

After rejecting a proposal earlier this month to give raises of more than 5 percent to four assistant city attorneys, Springfield aldermen this week indicated that the city’s top lawyer should create new job titles within his office and set salaries as he sees fit.

Corporation Counsel Todd Greenburg said the raises are needed to retain the four assistants and to be able hire new lawyers at competitive salaries.

“If I try to hire somebody else at a competitive salary, it’s going to be very difficult because it is somewhat of an insult to these four attorneys,” Greenburg said at Tuesday’s city council committee of the whole meeting. “And unfortunately at the rates that they are currently paid, they are well below market rates.”

The Office of Corporation Counsel is advertising two openings for attorneys and soon will have a third. Recruiting attorneys can be difficult when the state offers starting salaries of $51,500 to lawyers fresh out of law school, whereas the city recently has offered about $40,000, Greenburg said. Attorneys who come to the state with experience can start at $72,252, he said.

John Mehlick, a retired judge who served as acting corporation counsel last year, first proposed the raises before stepping down in December. The proposal was put on hold until the council confirmed Greenburg’s nomination in January.

Aldermen then rejected the raises in part because the proposal didn’t include enough detail. Mayor Mike Houston brought back to the council an ordinance listing the amount and percentage of the raise sought for each of the attorneys.

Linda O’Brien, Steven Rahn and Krista Appenzeller each would have received a $5,000 raise, which would have amounted to a raise of 8.12 percent for O’Brien, 7.75 percent for Rahn and 9.15 percent for Appenzeller. Jason Brokaw would have gotten a $10,000 raise, which would’ve boosted his salary by 24.8 percent.

Their current salaries are:

* Rahn: $64,470.85.

* O’Brien: $61,566.75.

* Appenzeller: $54,636.40.

* Brokaw: $40,314.14.

A 2007 ordinance requires city council approval for raises of more than 5 percent in a 12-month period, unless an employee changes job titles or a union contract requires the increase.

In response to questions from aldermen at Tuesday’s committee meeting, human resources director Melina Tomaras-Collins said Greenburg could create the new titles and set salaries for people given those titles without council approval.

“Why are we even discussing this here?” Ward 6 Ald. Cory Jobe said. “Why should 10 aldermen take a vote on raising pay when the administration can simply change these job titles now internally without us?”

Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin, who routinely votes against pay increases for city workers, said he previously suggested to Greenburg that he do just that to avoid creating “another public debate” on the issue.

“We should not be micromanaging the pay levels for our attorneys when it’s within the means of our directors to take care of it,” he said.

“I can’t agree more, alderman,” Greenburg replied, “but I’ve seen enough of the Springfield City Council to know that this is a very political body, and I did not want retaliation against my office in the future because of the perception that I was trying to make an end run around the city council.

“If the majority of the aldermen have no problems with my talking with the mayor and distributing salaries and job titles in the way that I see fit, I would be thrilled. I just do not want that action to be taken as an end run around the city council.”

Aldermen decided to keep the ordinance in committee.

Because none of them voiced objections, Greenburg said he plans “to create a new series of job titles and in consultation with the mayor hire people at appropriate salaries for that or transfer existing employees into those newly created job titles.”

He said Wednesday that he plans to move forward with that process “within the next couple weeks.”

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